Tag: Rainer maria rilke

I’m sitting on the south-facing terraza of my apartment, coffee at my side, legs propped on the laundry rack. The plaza is morning calm, the 60-ft. Italian cypress only betraying a slight breath of wind at its height. Magpies with glints of green and blue in their glossy wings stalk the piles of white petals in the corners of the streets and rooftops, searching for scraps. Just a moment ago, something bright green and yellow and clutching a long leafy thing veered in and out of sight. I smell rice, garlic, fresh bread.

This is a typical start to the day here in Puerta del Ángel. Spring came early, like mid-February, and most of my classes don’t start until sometime mid-afternoon, a routine I fully embrace.

It sounds idyllic. The truth is it’s been difficult.

Before I get into that, a full admission that there are several problems inherent with keeping a blog. 1) I know they’re somewhat early 2000s and on the way out. Podcasts are taking over in popularity. I’ve never been good with keeping up with the trends. 2) I obsess way too much over saying the right thing, not oversharing but not speaking in riddles. By the time I make up my mind to post anything at all, hours or even days have gone by. 3) Who even is reading this? (To clarify: if you are, I’m glad you’re here. I just have no idea who you are.)

Anyway, so that’s why everything here is posted at random intervals. The first few months of being here, I didn’t post because I was immersed in taking everything in. I wrote—a lot—and it was a good time of introspection. To quote Rilke (and more on him later):

“Ultimately, and precisely in the deepest and most important matters, we are unspeakably alone. . . . What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours—that is what you must be able to attain.”

The last few months, I’ve been wrestling with profound inner darkness, the kind that does not admit to speaking or writing easily and freely. Now that it is lifting—in part thanks to a generous dose of Vitamin D—I still have decisions to make. I hope to come back in the fall, but that depends on a visa and many other things that are currently obscure. Which is fine, I’m not stressing.

I’ve also been keeping busy with projects (starting up a design business, teaching voice classes, rehearsing with She Rose), chewing on Anna Karenina and Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet (refresher for this weary, befuddled mind), and last weekend, traipsing down south for a few days on an island. Juggling is fun!

Two weeks from Friday, I’ll be flying back to Chicago. It’s an exciting time in the family, and I love Chicago. If you’re a Chi-town type, look me up. If not, I’ll be in the Cities off-and-on as well as, like, North Carolina and whatnot. Maybe even Texas (looking at you, Busta Rhymes Baltzer).

I don’t miss America, but I do miss all the lovely people who make up its better pockets. Your love has proved to be “a strength and a blessing so large that I have been able to travel far without having to step outside of it” (Rilke, paraphrased).